1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of forming electrode structures for electrical products and, more specifically, forming respectively insulated electrode structures that may be used in electrode arrays.
2. Related Art
In many electrical devices, particularly those that are manufactured on a very small scale, the manufacture of the wiring and related components is often a labor intensive and specialized craft. In particular, ensuring that the wiring and electrical connection of the various components of the systems occurs correctly is often the most expensive and labor intensive aspect of the manufacturing process. This cost is often passed on to the ultimate consumer. This is also the case when such devices need to be specifically hand-made to a specification as often the availability of the device is dependent upon the time taken to manufacture the device, with the time taken being difficult or impossible to expedite.
This is often particularly the case in the field of medical implants and electrical devices that are implanted in the body. Such devices may include, for example, stimulating devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, FES stimulators, and the like; recording devices such as neural activity sensors and the like; implantable cables which connect implantable devices to other implantable devices; diagnostic devices capable of carrying out in vivo analysis of body parameters, and other types of implantable devices not yet contemplated.
In such devices, it is often desirable to minimize the size to ensure that they are minimally invasive upon implantation. As a result, in such instances, the electronic wiring and connections need also to be relatively very small. As such, manufacturing such devices to ensure that they are reliable and sturdy is a specialized art, requiring much time and expense.
Current techniques for the manufacture of electrode arrays for cochlear implant systems, in particular, are relatively highly labor intensive. This is primarily due to the intricate nature of the array and the very small dimensions of the array necessary to allow it to be inserted in the scala tympani of the human cochlea. Being an implantable device capable of delivering and applying electrical currents to surrounding tissue, there is a need to ensure that the elements of the array are electrically isolated from each other to avoid short circuits and the like which may greatly diminish the benefits of such a device, as well as have the potential to cause pain and discomfort to the recipient.